


Overnight

by Teawithmagician



Category: Fury (2014)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Europe, F/M, Het, Minor Character Death, Original Character(s), Paris (City), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 16:19:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7229716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teawithmagician/pseuds/Teawithmagician
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two Parisiennes, translator longing for the lost lover, and dance teacher, eager for freedom and colors of life, and two Americans, rough Cajun who sees a city like that for the first time in his life, and scorched tank commander - they lives are entwined, but only for a couple of nights.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Overnight

**Author's Note:**

> English + some German dialogues, untranslated for the reasons of authenticity.

1.

 

They were sitting in the cafe, watching the American soldiers next table. It smelled like coffee, cigarettes, and spring. The doors were open, sounds of the street getting in, mixing up with the ringing of the cups, rasping of the chair legs, foreign speech, and laughter.

 

“The war is over,” Arabella said, lighting a cigarette. Her white glove was stained and she looked at the stain with displeasure as though it was an annoying adorer who didn't bother to introduce himself.

 

“Not yet,” Martha took a drag and dumped the stub into the ceramic ashtray with the pink poodle, covered with a layer of cinder. Her hat was lying on the chair nearby, dyed black, with the remains of pheasant feathers under the band.

 

There was a tall loud soldier among the Americans. He was sitting with his knees wide apart, so the waitresses stumbled on his boots. He couldn't take his eyes from Arabella.

 

“It's over in France,” Arabella shook her chemical curls. There were dark circles under her eyes, she looked weary and older than her age. “What are you going to do?”

 

No matter if Arabella was in her best or worst shape, there were men who did it – tracked her with his eyes, hoping for a smile and for something more if they were lucky. If Arabella was a rose, a queen of flowers, Martha would be a lily, and she felt more and more like a funeral one.

 

Martha realized Arabella was still waiting for her to answer only when Arabella touched her hand. Arabella's touch was like a poke, gripping and energetic, Martha jerked at it, looked around, trying to remember  where she was and why.

 

“Are you thinking about him?”

 

“He asked me to make some coffee,” Martha nodded, crossing her legs under the table. “In the kitchen, I heard a gunshot. When I came back to the room... I'd better stayed at the kitchen.”

 

“You should move on, dear,” Arabella said, tapping on Martha's hand. Her round face was filled with compassion which switched for a confident interest rapidly as Arabella saw something behind Martha's shoulder. “You should... wait a moment.”

 

The Americans were about to leave. Arabella stood up, touched her collar and smiled with one of her scenic smiles which never left the audience indifferent. “What are you going to do?” Martha held on the cuff of Arabella's blouse. She didn't like Arabella's mood, it was a mood to get into trouble with.

 

“Oh, I am going to fuck a soldier boy,” Arabella muttered as the loud soldier tarried at his table, making a jam in the hall through which a couple of waitresses tried to push through gently. “Not an officer, they are only giving orders. I am going to fuck a soldier boy because soldiers are always the scapegoats. They are fighting for us, and I'm going to...”

 

The loud soldier's face was full of childish astonishment and grown-up lust when Arabella stepped up to him, exclaiming “Viva la Liberte!”, and kissed him on the lips. Martha pressed her hand to her mouth, pleading silently it was not one of those “Arabella things”.

 

The visitors of the cafe, mostly French and some of the British military, didn't share Martha's shock and embarrassment. The spirits were high and free that spring and no one would judge a woman for kissing a soldier: there would even be ones to praise her.

 

Arabella, though, wasn't just kissing the loud man who grabbed her elbows, devouring her mouth like a Millefeuille. Martha noticed how she shoved a piece of paper into his hand, caressing his fingers. When they finished the kiss, Arabella's lipstick was all over the soldier's lips.

 

The rest of the Americans reacted with a delay. The tanned Spanish-like military man gave a whistle, and said something to the man of more modest behavior, with his short beard and sulky brown eyes looking like a provincial schoolteacher.

 

The schoolteacher laughed, and put a hand on the shoulder of the loud soldier while the tanned one tried to kiss Arabella, grabbing her hand. That would be the time Arabella would be in trouble Martha was afraid of, but the loud soldier pushed his friend aside, and the tanned military snapped at him with the mix of English and Spanish words.

 

The cafe owner, m-r Octave, walked out of the counter, two or free men standing up from their chairs, but the quarrel ended up peacefully. The tanned man just shrugged his shoulders at the loud and walked away through the entrance doors.

 

The school-teacher must have said something apologizing and Arabella nodded him, not driving her eyes away from the loud soldier, who was turning back to her even when he was in the street.

 

2.

 

In the evening, Arabella dressed up in her best: silk underwear, red dress with that cigarette burn on the hip and the last pair of stockings she saved for a special occasion. Watching Arabella drawing eyebrows, shading blusher and lining her lips in professionally careless moves, Martha asked, “What if he won't come?”

 

“Why he would?” Arabella turned back to Martha, one her eyes closed, and another one opened widely, mascara brush froze in her hand.

 

“He doesn't speak French and he doesn't know the city.”

 

“He didn't get himself killed so he is not a complete idiot,” Arabella turned away on the puff, brushing lashes irritatedly. Like a Caesar, Arabella didn't know what failure was: her vocabulary wasn't made for such a word. “Besides, have you seen how he's been looking at me? He ought to come. He looked at me like...”

 

The doorbell ringed and Arabella, running the  powder puff  up and down her nose, shoveled her cosmetics from the deck of the  pier glass  into the drawer. She went to the door, making sure her steps sounded restful and slow as though she waited for no one that evening.

 

“Arabella, please,” Martha said when Arabella stood on her tiptoe, looking into the peephole. The door shook under the series of thunderous knocking. “It can be dangerous. Did you think about it?”

 

“No,” Arabella turned the key in the keyhole, opening the door. “Whatever happen, I can handle it. Any man what happen to me, I can handle.”

 

Martha jumped into her room quickly, closing the door. She found the soldier frightening, he was too tall and took too much space around him. Standing in the doorway, he made the whole flat look small like a rat hole. He had a blunt face and restful, lively dark eyes, Martha noticed for the second time. The first thing he did was grabbing Arabella's butt and raising her above the floor.

 

Martha was listening to the sound of their voices, becoming quieter at Arabella's room. Martha slipped out of the room and put on her coat. There were chocolate bars, lying on the stand next to the mirror. Martha's thought that Arabella accepted nothing less than finest Swiss milk chocolate, but the soldier didn't know that.

 

Martha walked in the entrance door and went down the staircase. It smelled like in a tomb, with mustiness and old dust. The evening was transparent lilac like a shawl, the street-lights were not even lighting up. Martha had two or  three hours of idleness she had to spend tete-a-tete with herself, a company she could no longer bear. She needed a solution, so it was found quickly.

 

There was another cafe on another side of the street, tables inside and outside it, capturing a significant part of the sidewalk. Clouds of smoke, couples of the flower-like woman and men in dirty-yellow, gray and dark blue uniform, the sounds of the music floating over the street. Martha took a deep breath. All these people, they would be in there, too, but in the end, Martha would be on her own.

 

It comforted Martha a bit, but when she entered the hall and saw all the tables were already taken, she got a fit of panic. She wanted to run back to the apartment, cover her head with a blanket and cry, but there were Arabella and that man, so that would be no easier.

 

Martha turned her head in search of the available seats and found a bar stool between a drunk but a still polite man who seemed to be either Italian or Spanish, talking to the hostess, and a quiet man in sand uniform.

 

“Bonsoir, madame,” Ethiopian hostess switched to Martha at the moment she sat, ignoring the Italian man in a gentle manner. Martha thought she must have been given the hard times while the occupation. The hostess had her reason to smile brightly and to flirt with a handsome man, as the hard times were gone. “What would you like to drink?”

 

“Ein Glas Wein, bitte,” Martha said automatically and held her breath. Everyone tended to be nice before they heard German speech. The expression of hostess' face changed, her look became unpleasantly surprised and cold.

 

“Sind Sie die Deutsche?” the sand officer on Martha's left asked indifferently, looking into his glass. There was a pile of cigarette stubs in the cleaved ashtray before him.

 

“Nein, ich bin die Übersetzerin,” Martha responded quickly, pale from tension. The hostess was still looking at her with suspect, bottle of wine in her one hand, and glass – in another, so she repeated, “I am a translator.”

 

“Wenn Sie die deutsche Sprache mögen, sollten Sie beenden sie zu lieben,” the sand officer said. He spoke slowly, as though nothing in the world aroused his interest. Martha straightened on the stool, taking her glass from the hands of the slightly softened hostess. It was always a temptation to speak German, but the officer was right – it wasn't the time.

 

“I used to love German before the war. Now... I still love it. But it brings pain,” Martha confessed, feeling embarrassed with the sincerity of her words. But she saw that officer for the first and for the last time in her life, and he spoke German, and she needed to talk to somebody but Arabella.

 

“Ich spreche Französisch nicht,” the officer said. He took out a cigarette, and, following Martha's look, offered her a smoke. Martha explored his face, he didn't look like dangerous. Men with eyes so hollow were no threat, Martha learned it by heart, but she had to make the things clear.

 

“Sie können mich nicht für eine Zigarette kaufen,” she warned him. “Ich will nicht,” he said.

 

Martha dragged the cigarette out, noticing the Italian listening to their speech. German attracted attention and she felt uncomfortable, thinking about all these people around them who hated the sounds of it.

 

“Ob Sie Deutsch sprechen wollen, sollten wir besser verlassen,” Martha said, and the officer answered calmly, “Ich habe nicht gesagt, dass ich Deutsch sprechen will.”

 

“Und ich habe nicht gesagt, dass ich neben Ihnen sitzen will. Ich wollte nur leerer Stuhl,” Martha snapped at him, glass trembling in her hand.

 

She regretted she came here and hated Arabella for her insatiability. To find a one-night stand was a weird way to celebrate, and making Martha leave the flat just for Arabella to have fun was inappropriate. How could Arabella do that to her?

 

Martha made a sip, wine seeming sour to her. She left the money on the counter, jumped off the stool and walked out of doors, breathing the mild evening air deeply. She would take a walk to the Seina embankment, Martha hoped there wouldn't be too many people, but she exactly knew it would.

 

“Es tut mir leid, Frau,” the officer said with a noticeable lack of regret in his voice. He followed Martha out of the doors, standing in two steps from her.

 

“Nein, es tut Ihnen leid nicht,” Martha answered coldly.

 

“Nein, aber ich habe mit Ihnen ging. Im Gegensatz zu Rest meines Gesellschafters, muss ich Sie nicht beseitigen.”

3.

 

Martha and the officer had a walk around the quarter. There were a lot of couples around, so they didn't attract attention. The officer introduced himself as Don Collier and shook Martha's hand when she said her name. Collier said he hadn't been on a walk with a woman since the war began.

 

“Do you regret it?” Martha asked, they passing by the church sometimes she went for a mass at.

 

“Maybe,” Collier wasn't talkative. They walked, and smoked, and watched the evening pass by, yet they walked on a distance no one of them tried to reduce. “I don't have much time for it.”

 

“For women or for regretting?”

 

“Both. Do you know how it's with the woman in the war?”

 

“No. I don't even want to. Don't tell this to me.”

 

Martha stopped in the corner under the street-light. Her dark dress with a turndown collar, her coat with a faded fox on the shoulders and a military company, it made her feel like a prostitute, and the whole thing like “Lili Marlen”.

 

“Give me a cigarette, please,” Martha demanded nervously and Don dragged a pack. She took one and he gave her a light without asking, then – took a cigarette, too.

 

“Why are you so afraid of German?” Don asked, holding the cigarette between his fore and middle fingers, his thumb aside.

 

“It was an occupied city,” Martha raised her collar. The answer wasn't enough for Don.

 

“It was, but not like in the East.”

 

“It's enough danger for a woman even in a city occupied like Paris,” Martha said haughtily. She didn't like people asking her such questions. She asked him in return, “The war is scary. Have you ever cried of fear?”

 

“I did,” Don agreed easily.

 

“When?” Martha asked predatory, her eyes exploring his face.

 

“In Africa. That was when my tank burned.”

 

They walked to the porch in silence, each sinking in his own thoughts. Martha hid her hands in the pockets, the evening remembered her of how it had started with Wolfgang. He was no pushy, he didn't try to touch her, to kiss her, to show she had what he wanted and what he was intended to get.

 

Wolfgang enjoyed her presence, that's why he asked for another day. And a day after another day, and the next day after it. Did Don enjoy her presence? It was more like he had something in him that made him avoid being alone.

 

Martha understood that. That was maybe the only reason she could compassionate him. She wouldn't believe in love at the first sight of the flame of passion: she knew the cost of it. Men promised women to be together forever and ever, but when it came to the decision, they did it on their own.

 

“The church we passed,” Don started, cigarette in the corner of his mouth, “how old is it?”

 

“XIX century, but stylized,” Martha answered as though at the excursion with her pupils.

 

“Are you attending it?”

 

“Do I look like a woman who does?”

 

“You sometimes talk like a man from my crew. He talks from Bible and of Bible.”

 

“No, I don't. I'm not a Bible woman.”

 

“Some say it helps, to be a Bible person.”

 

“I don't believe the one it was written for exists, the one the Church was built for exists. If he does, why does he allow so many terrible things to happen?”

 

“Maybe he exists, but he has forgotten about us. Has more important things to do.”

 

“So here we are,” Martha stopped at the steps of the porch, turning back to Don. “Thank you for the company. I need to go.”

 

Don nodded. For a moment, Martha was afraid he would try to kiss her or ask her for a cup of coffee, but he didn't. She opened the door and entered the darkness, having a strong feeling Don stands before the door and looking at her back like a guard dog.

 

The tomb embraced Martha and she started to suffocate. The stairwell before the window was somehow lit with the reflection of the streetlights and Martha tried to get there by touch, holding on the railing and put her shaking legs from one step to another carefully. Her hands were moist and her back was sweating, Martha felt the grave breath of emptiness on her cheeks.

 

Der Toten Tatenruhm , everyone died in the end and nothing lasted forever. Wolfgang did what he  had  to and Martha couldn't even attend his funeral, couldn't say the truth about him and the man he was.

 

Martha climbed up the stairs and stopped before the window. The stars were hardly seen above the rooftops, the sky was muddy, more of dark green than of velvet blue. Don Collier who burned in his tank but made it through to Paris was slowly walking away from Martha's house, sinking in the darkness and diving on the light again when he walked from one street-light to another.

 

Martha looked at Don a little more, before he faded away in the spider net of the streets, swallowed by the night, and continued her ascension. When she was opening the door with her key, she felt like something that met her in the darkness beyond was still there, incorporeal and lifeless, kissing away the blush from the lovers' cheeks.

 

It was dark in the hallway, too, but that was a familiar darkness of the home. Martha put her coat on the hanger and looked around the corner. The door into Arabella's room was half-opened, in the twilight of it, Martha saw the outlines of what must've been two heads on one pillow. If the evidence wasn't enough, there was a military boot in the doorway, laces tossed like seaweed.

 

Martha opened the door into her room. Had entered, she closed it gently. She took a look at her bed, at the opened doors of the wardrobe. The trinkets were still lying on the writing desk, the dusty curtains with peacocks flattering on the drift.

 

Martha gasped hysterically and slid down the door, crying silently till she felt so exhausted that curled down on the floor, hoping insomnia would spare her at least for one night.

 

4.

 

In the morning, Arabella and the soldier were saying goodbye for a half-an-hour or so, as Martha defined by watching the clock on the writing desk. The sounds of kissing,  somniferous and muffled, the dorky giggles and the sound of the clothes falling off the racks the soldier must have dropped while pressing Arabella to the wall.

 

Arabella's voice sounded weary, she always needed a time for herself after such nights. The soldier told her something in English, loud enough for Martha to hear it through the closed door, and Arabella answered him in French, in the imperturbable manner that made her men go crazy.

 

Arabella must be telling him the common nuisance she told to everyone, but as the soldier didn't leave, he took Arabella for face value, and the language barrier made the understanding no easier.

 

After the entrance door closed, in a minute or two door into Martha's room  creaked . Arabella was standing in the doorway, wrapping in her silk robe with heavenly birds and wildflowers on it. Arabella was rumpled from sleep, her hair messy, smudged mascara underneath her eyes.

 

“I'm sorry for him,” Arabella yawned. “He is such a farm boy. But, you know, he does it like it's the last day in his life. And even when he needs a rest, he still keeps his arms on me as though he wants to hold everything that he can't use just to use it later.”

 

“You know, I don't like these details,” Martha reproached Arabella, raising her head from the pillow. In the reflection of the wardrobe's lacquered door Martha saw she was still dressed. She didn't even changed for the night and slept in her clothes on: a thing happened to her often these days.

 

“I guess, you didn't have fun that evening,” Arabella came and sit on Martha's bed while Martha was trying to figure everything out.

 

“No. Do you even know his name?” Martha asked. Judging on the reflection, she looked no better than Arabella, though Arabella was getting what she wanted that night, and Martha was just roaming around, haunted by memories.

 

“Yes. His name is Grady. I believe I got it right,” Martha said sleepily. “I'm sorry for the inconvenience. But he just won't come again. That's why it is called one night stand.”

 

But Grady came. He came that evening, and the next evening, and the evening next evening. He was unbred, there were holes on the toes of his socks, he spat into the sink and blew his nose in his fingers, but he repaired everything needed repairing: the pipes, the stove, even the Bohemian glass lamp that never lit properly.

 

Grady knew two or three words in French, “merde” and something else, and Arabella never bothered herself with the studying of the languages believing the dance is a language itself: it didn't seem to interfere. When Grady started coming, Arabella grimaced and said it all got irritating, but she didn't look like she really wanted to get rid of him. When Martha caught Arabella teaching him to dance the paso doble, she knew Arabella was as crazy with the spring as everybody around.

 

One day Grady came in the uniform looking less baggy and less messy than always and took Arabella, who had run out of stockings, with him. He brought her stockings, too, and he put it on her legs for a reward. “He and the boys he serves with are going back to the war,” Arabella explained with feverish vivacity, standing in the doorway, Grady pulling her hand. “I'll be late, so lock the door and put the key out, please.”

 

Grady grumbled and Arabella closed the door, they running down the staircase loudly. Martha breathed out as she finally was alone and took a book from the shelf. She needed pretending she was reading: she only needed her memories and photograph stuck between the pages. It was her and Wolfgang, always her and Wolfgang, three times as there were only three cards she kept.

 

The black uniform, the ice gray eyes, the sharp look of his eyes, but the expression milder than ever when Martha's hand was on his elbow. Martha wasn't supposed to have the photos. Arabella pulled all the strings she had just to spread the word Martha was forced to live with Wolfgang, being “a victim of German violence”.

 

The lie wanted Martha to scream: it was all wrong. Parisians cooperated with Germans and nobody though Germans were monsters like vampires or werewolves. The people who worked for the black market called themselves partisans and started a witch hunt for the “German whores”, forgetting they were the German whores by themselves. Their Resistance was speculation, but since the times had changed, fraudsters pretended to be heroes, and the crowd believed them.

 

The phone rang, making Martha jump in the armchair. The frantic ringing meant it was a trouble and the louder and more demanding it was, the bigger the problem was. Martha run through her room into the hallway, grabbing the receiver just to hear Arabella's voice, interrupted  by the white noise, “Martha... come... write down the address... I need your help...”

 

It took Martha minutes to get dressed and fly out of the house. She and Arabella, they knew each other for years, and they could always rely on each other in case of need. With spirits so free and moods so light, everything could happen and Martha didn't believe the gendarmes much if the Americans were involved.

 

Martha caught a taxi to get to the place Arabella told, spending her last money, but only on the drive Martha realized it was a restaurant.

 

Getting out of the taxi at the sight of the hotel building with a fashionable – more or less, like everything after liberation – restaurant Martha strongly suspected she would be angry with Arabella if coming here was not the matter of life and death.

 

When Martha and the weary fox on her shoulders entered the marble, bronze and crystal splendor, every velvet chair, every vintage table fool of Americans and their women, Martha realized she was going to be very, very angry.

 

“Martha!” Arabella stood up, waving her hand. Her soldier was holding her hand inch higher the bend of the elbow as though he was afraid of Arabella flying away from the table and being gone with the wind. “Glad you came. We realized none of the gentlemen speak French, but Grady's officer does speak German.”

 

One waiter taking away Martha's coat, another moving a chair for her, she shook the hands of everyone sitting at the table, men standing up to greet her. There was the tanned man who tried to kiss Arabella at the cafe, a school-teacher, shaking Arabella's hand gently and wearing round eyeglasses making him look as civil as possible. The last chair was absent, that must have been the seat of their commander.

 

“Arabella,” Martha said, her face still. “Do you know I am mourning? I've spent my last money to get there only to know you and your boyfriend need a translator.”

 

“Now you are offending me. Grady is not my boyfriend,” Grady dug his face into Arabella's neck, sniffing like a dog, and Arabella slapped his nape, pulling his earlobes to make him behave. “And you are just crying, not sleeping in the nights and thinking of Wolfgang all the time. You need impressions. You need to stop living in the past. You need to... Ah, bonsoir, monsieur, et voici mon ami!”

 

Martha turned back and  looked at the man, slowly walking to the table from the lavatory. His hair was in a color of sunburnt rye, but  his temples were white, yet it was hard to distinguish if not peering at him closely. He was wearing a sand uniform, yet his eyes were no more hollow – just sulky and tired.

 

5.

 

“Guten Abend, Frau Marta,” Don Collier took Martha's hand and squeezed it just a little. “Mein Mechaniker kam von Sinnen und beschloss, dass wir mit seine Herzensdame treffen sollten.”

 

“Denken Sie niedrig über die Arabella nicht,” Martha warned him. “Sie lebte in der Grisettenwirtschaft und sie verhält sich, wie sie gewöhnte.”

 

“Ich denke über sie niedrig nicht,” Don sat down. “Ich denke niedrig über niemanden.”

 

The waiters brought on the starters and the wine. The modest abundance of the  liberation , it was all on the porcelain plates, in the cruet stands, salad-bowls, and dishes. Martha looked at the food blankly, she lost her appetite. Arabella imposed the cheese and the meat with two forks, and the tankers keeping up with her.

 

Grady told Don something, still chewing, his mouth full of ham, pink crumbs in the corners of his mouth. Don nodded and told Matha that Grady wanted to tell something to Arabella, something Martha should translate because he had no chance to tell it before because of the language.

 

“Was will er sagen?” Martha asked. The school-teacher filled her glass second after Arabella's. By the way he avoided looking at Arabella, Martha knew she got him. Like a magic archer from the old fairy-tale, Arabella could get anyone she wanted, yet the aftermath was all Martha's.

 

“ Er will sagen, dass er mit ihnen den ganzen Tag Liebe machen will, und die ganze Nacht, und den ganzen Morgen, dann in den morgen weggehen, und dann zurückkehren und von vorn anfangen,” Don explained with the slightest amusement. It was like he found Grady and the whole thing funny, though tiresome.

 

“Das ist, was er gesagt hat?” Martha asked again, suspiciously. She had a strong feeling that Grady, who's arm under the table obviously rested on Arabella's knee, said something stronger, what, like a cheap bourbon, struck both into the head and between the legs.

 

“Natürlich,” Don said imperturbably. He sat, leaning on the back of his chair. There was something powerful about him, surrounded by his man. The Spanish tanker at Don's right watched Martha with his eyes dark like fried chestnuts.

 

“Gut,” Martha answered briefly, and said, putting her hand on Arabella's shoulder and clearing her throat. “Belle, dear. It's like your new friend wants to tell you he loves you.”

 

“Really?” Arabella looked amused. Her reaction must have been not what Spanish man wanted, as the glimpse of interest in his eyes went out at the first signs of Arabella's reaction. “He's such a stupid boy, isn't he? It's not about love, it is...”

 

The music started to play all at once. Half of the lights went down, the curtains on the scene at the painted wall raised, and the woman in a shiny blue dress came out to the very edge of it. She was greeted with whistles and joyful cheers, the man at the tables closest to her seemed to be clapping the life out of themselves.

 

Grady embraced Arabella once again, sucking on her ear. The school-teacher raised another glass and drank it to the bottom like it was schnapps, not Sauvignon. The Spanish man joke, if it was his joke, didn't go that well, so he watched the singer, tapping his fingers on the table.

 

“Ich weiß nicht, wo dachten Sie hin, aber ich habe kein Geld für das Abendessen zu bezahlen,” Martha said strictly, taking the advantage of everyone at the table ignoring each other, music too loud for they could put attention on their company even if they wanted to. “Ich werde ein nicht bezahlen.”

 

“ Das ist nicht nötig. Das ist unser letzter Abend in Paris,” Don shook his head, but Martha insisted, “Ich will mich nicht dankschuldig fühlen.”

 

“Sie schulden mir nicht,” Don took a cigarette and rolled it in the fingers, his elbow on the table, his left hand clasping a starched napkin. He didn't eat, but drink, just like the school-teacher, unlike Grady, who seemed to enjoy his meal even more, than the company.

 

Arabella watched the couples dancing before the scene, moving her shoulders in the rhythm of the song, her eyes dreamily staring into nowhere. Grady reached out for more ham, but Arabella had already left the table, grabbing his hand and pulling him after herself.

 

“Er tanzt nicht,” Don said. “Ihre Freundin hat ihn mit jemandem aus dem Französisch verwechselt. Er ist grausig gut als Mechaniker, aber er tanzt nicht.”

 

“Er hat Beine, so dass er tanzen kann.”

 

“Dort, wo er geboren wurde, Tänze sind anderer,” Don lit the cigarette and dragged the first smoke, gray and sour. Grady resisted, but weakly, and when Arabella lost hold of his hand, turned her back on him and walked to the dancing couples, he rushed from the table, making the tableware ring.

 

“Sie verstehen nicht,” Martha said. The Spanish man followed Grady with his eyes with an expression of moderate surprise on his face. Everything about him was moderate, even the laughter. “Die Leute warteten über Monate um ihre Unterrichten zu besuchen. Ob sie nicht Ihren Mechaniker lehren zu tanzen kann, dann niemand kann.”

 

He pushed the school-teacher in the ribs with his elbow, drawing his attention to the picture, and the school-teacher just shrugged his shoulders, telling something that made both Don and the Spanish man made a laugh. Martha looked at Don to explain to her what was happening.

 

“Er sagt, dass Grady‘ Tänze die Pest von Ägypten sind.”

 

“Sie sind vier. Haben sie sich einmal als Reiter der Apokalypse vorgestellt?” Martha snapped. She didn't like the way tankers made fun of the evening, it was something morbid about that.

 

“Wir waren fünf,” Don said. Martha turned away from him, looking at Arabella and Grady dancing. Grady wasn't made for dances, Don was true. He lost the rhythm often and only Arabella's proficiency saved her shoes from Gardy's boots, but still she looked so happy dancing.

 

Grady looked like a big fool. Martha had no illusions, Grady was a military man, so he was a murderer – that was how it always worked. But his big blunt face, his broken nose, his coarse hair – everything looked in another way when he danced with Arabella.

 

The couples, the music, Arabella treating Grady like a circus bear on the floor and Grady looking at her like she was a firework in the gardens of Versailles, it was all so infectious that Martha sighed and muttered under her breath, “Ich habe  einige  Monaten nicht getanzt .”

 

“Möchten Sie?” Martha must have muttered it too loud for Don had listened to what she said. She turned back and looked at him to see his face as gray as the smoke of his cigarettes. The change was striking, Martha answered promptly, “I don't feel like dancing.”

 

Martha looked away, gasping, her heart pounding in her chest. The face of Wolfgang stood before her eyes, pale grayish when he told her everything was going to be alright in his confident, quiet voice. And asked, a little bit more tender, if Martha, his dear, made him a cup of coffee.

 

The couples danced vigorously, the couples turned, the music played louder and the singer's voice flew to the ceiling, making the chandeliers tremble. The Spanish man skipped the beat with his feet under the table, gazing at Martha with an expression she didn't understand, and the school-teacher was talking either to himself or to his friend, filling in his glass.

 

But Don... he wasn't there. He was sitting between Martha and the Spanish man, but he had just disappeared. Martha looked around, there were too much sand uniforms to find one, but she felt like she saw Don entering the lavatory and shuddered. His face was frightening. A man with a face like this shouldn't be alone.

 

Martha got up from her chair. Nobody moved it for her, nobody put attention at her. She went through the whole hall of people, sitting, standing, tapping their feet. Cheers sounded louder, fun was feverish: people sucked on life like leeches sucking away every glimpse of it. The reality faded away, Martha could feel the colors bleaching, the evening becoming an old photograph.

 

In the lavatory colors flashed on their pique. The white tile, the golden edging, the blue glass, the shiny brass cranes, it shined and played like at Gaughen paintings. The only bleached smudge was Don's back as he was leaning over the sink, washing his face, pouring water over his hair.

 

Martha closed the door and the lock clicked. Don jerked his head, his hands on the sink. Veins on his temples were pulsing when he turned her hand to Martha and snapped at her hoarsely,  “Warum haben Sie gekommen?”

 

Martha approached slowly. Don breathed deeply, making whistling sounds on exhalation. In his face. Martha saw her past and his future. He was dead, he searched for dead, he longed for it and was afraid of it. Once she saw Wolfgang like that, but she was sure it was his thing, he could make it through by himself.

 

“Geh weg,” Don said and she embraced him, holding him tight. His nape was cut so short hair felt like suede under her hand. He didn't touch her, but he didn't push her away. So Martha clenched her fingers on his shoulders and whispered in his neck, “Bitte sterben Sie nicht. Sie brauchen nicht zu sterben. Niemand braucht zu sterben noch mehr.”

 

Martha still listened to Don's heavy breath when she felt his hand under her skirt, on the stripe of the bare naked skin between her underwear and the stocking – one of the stockings Grady got for Arabella and Arabella always shared with her.

 

 

 

 


End file.
